I am the FeedWatcher and every summer I am a Big Brother addict. Live feed updates, gossip, and other tidbits. Yes, I post spoilers.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Meet James Huling - Let's Go Buckwild and Party Down South #BB17

1. Jeff sat down with James Huling as part of the live BB17 kickoff, interviewing him in the DR prior to him being set loose in the game (probably later that day). I'm not gonna lie----I was not impressed or excited about James based on his overall presentation. I mean, maybe Production wanted him to wear the camouflage pants and visor to hit us over the head about him being an avid hunter. I don't like hunting, or hunters who crow about hunting. And I do like golfers, but even they irritate me when they insist on wearing visors all the time.

2. James has a STRONG country accent, so I will be able to recognize him on the live feeds when he's speaking so that's good. But as a southern person, I don't like to perpetuate the image that people from the south are all stupid. But he can't help his voice, I guess, so I'll try to get over that. He tells Jeff that he's from "all over" and works as a retail associate. I think that means he works in a store.

3. James says he's a people person, a country boy, and he loves to hunt. (You don't say....) He tells Jeff that he doesn't know what his bad qualities are, but he's sure that "the other people in the house will let him know".

(Ruh Roh)

4. James has a daughter whose name is Brianna. Then he admits that he has "inherited an adopted son named Landon". But if he wins, he is going to set up a trust fund for Brianna (not Landon, apparently). He knows his family is behind him all the way this summer.

(I hope Landon makes good grades and keeps those scholarship opportunities open. And Brianna too, for that matter.)

5. James says he's "worked corrections", and "also has military experience". Now, who does that sound like? Caleb, maybe? It is my conclusion that James was somehow snared by the BB casting recruitment process, because I do not think he is a BB fan. In fact during the interview he says he "heard" BB can be a tough game, mentally but he's up for the challenge.

6. So he might not have even watched any of the seasons in sequester, from the sound of it. Chew on that for awhile, won't you?

7. James wanted to be on Big Brother so he can "say he did this", and to "claim the experience".

8. James says that getting cast on the show is his biggest accomplishment in life. Jeff is surprised at that, and teases him about not mentioning his daughter. James does have a good sense of humor and laughs easily a number of times throughout the interview.

9. I know all of these pictures look the same. Sorry about that, but the subject matter is what it is, people.

10. James struggled to remember the last time he cried, but then says it was kind of recent, when his daughter Brianna said "Daddy I love you".

11. In defense of James, he did make a comment that acknowledged that Jeff was "a BB legend", but I'm guessing that someone in Production told him that as he got ready for the interview. James wants us all to pull for him this summer, and says he wants to be the "first hillbilly Asian on Big Brother". I'm sure that comment will win James a lot of fans. Probably the Donny Thompson bunch, but as we know that can be a powerful lobby.

***FEEDWATCHER FORECAST***

OK. In an effort to keep things real, I will say that prior to this season starting, there was a lot of speculation about whether or not CBS would cast a transgender person. When I saw James' selfie next to the other house guests, I picked him out as the trans person, thinking that a female-to-male person would be especially interesting as the entire process has become more mainstream.

That facial hair just looked weird to me, like a Cheri Oteri Saturday Night Live skit or something. But watching and listening to him convinced me that he was indeed born a man. And, of course I found out that Audrey is the trans person on the cast.

I know I am stereotyping here, but I'm thinking James might have been cast partly to provide a dissenting voice to what I expect to be overwhelming support for Audrey's transition among the BB17 cast members. Of course, I could be wrong, and if so I apologize.

***UPDATE***

OK, so the BB17 season is LONG over, and now James has been repeatedly trying to contact me about removing his mugshot picture and arrest information from my website. I'm not one of those BB fans who is clamoring for contact with former Big Brother house guests. I run a business....I have a busy life.....when the season is over, it's usually over for me, too.

But I find the post-season BB fans kind of interesting, because they really try to get in there and mix it up with the former house guests. And by the looks of some of the interactions, many of them didn't even watch the live feeds, or follow the season very closely. But I digress.

I will remove the picture, but it is still out there James. If you can get the people who run Survivor Sucks to take the picture down, then I really will be impressed. There are some important lessons to be learned here for all of you kids (and James):

1. Once something is out there on the internet, it's out there on the internet for a long, long time. Maybe forever, but none of us really knows about the longevity of the interwebs.

2. If you make a public figure out of yourself, then your information becomes public. The irony is that if you don't have much of a past, then reality television probably isn't that interested in you.

3. A big part of the Big Brother franchise involves people like me (and us) watching, and listening, and reporting. So what you say or do will become news, in a sick, twisted sort of way. Don't say or do anything while the cameras are on you that you are going to regret later. Or for a long, long time. (See Lesson #1. )

***END OF UPDATE***

Oh, and James has at least one mugshot out there. Get a load of this:

***THE PICTURE WAS REMOVED AFTER REPEATED REQUESTS FROM JAMES HULING.***

Yes, that charge reads "____________________", and that can't be good news for ____________. Do you think that the South Carolina authorities did a proper search of his car when they arrested him? Do you think they gave him a Breathalyzer? Because he looks pretty damn high to me in that picture. Seems like they could have racked up some more charges that day if they really wanted to.

Not James' proudest day, I'm guessing.

I don't like the way he said he had an "________________". That sounds worse than calling someone a _________________. Does that mean that James' "lady friend', if indeed he has one, ___________? And I say "lady friend" because it is not clear from this interview if James is married or divorced or what-have-you. I looked at James' CBS bio for some additional information, but while the posted information is somewhat heartbreaking, it is also very sparse.

I hope this doesn't indicate that CBS took shortcuts on James' background search. Because safety.

I'm sorry to trash James, but to be honest I don't like him. I didn't like Caleb Reynolds either, though, and he made some sort of believer out of me last season. I don't think James knows much about Big Brother, and I think his oddball exterior will have the house guests thinking that something is up with him, and that he's hiding something. (Let's face it, he probably is.)

Throw in the very real possibility of some hateful situations happening this summer, and I think the risk of James heading back home before Jury is a strong possibility.

I just remembered that during the BB17 season (at least eight months ago), some of James' friends started pestering me to apologize to James, like I did with Caleb. You can't see me now, but I'm rolling my eyes while I type that.

They were like, "you better take it back....say you like James now", and so forth. I think the girl that was behind that initiative was the one who later started some kind of GoFundMe account to raise money for James' immediate family to attend the BB17 reunion, but she later confessed the money was for her after some sharp-eyed fans figured out the scam. Something like that.

Anyhoo, I didn't say much about James during the season at all. I didn't report his misogynist comments, or the way he asked others if he could get Audrey pregnant. I just ignored it, for the most part. I did think his tin foil headset was funny, and also when he used powdered sugar to cut up some fat lines of blow. But I don't feel the need to apologize to anybody.

And since it came up, I regret my online apology to Caleb, but don't have the energy or interest to go back and amend that post. I don't think I ever followed Caleb on Twitter, but he recently blocked me when I took offense to some crap his girlfriend was circulating on Twitter. I wasn't following him, but he blocked me anyway. You know, just in case I decide to follow him for a daily dose of "I Love Jesus But I Have Bad Grammar Now Please Buy My Nutritional Supplements" tweets.

About The Blocking: Caleb and his girlfriend were basically doing some sermonizing. Because they're so holy and all. And the gist of what was being said was, "Caleb is friends with some homosexuals, and loves them, even though they are sinners who are going to hell."

And the crazy thing is, neither Caleb or His Woman had any idea why it was wrong to say that, or why so many people would be deeply offended by that comment. Caleb was apparently deeply offended, however, that I tweeted back to them that His Woman should never have retweeted such hateful comments.

And I copied Jeff Probst on my Tweet, too.. Ha ha ha.

***WILL ANYONE EVER SEE THESE UPDATES TO MY ORIGINAL POST FROM NINE MONTHS AGO? ***

4 comments
:

Hey can you please delete this post, or take down the picture of me. Thank you james. I'm not a bad guy...the kid I was talking about as my adopted son is NOT actually my kid. He has a father. I was saying he is like my adopted son, because I've seen him grown up before my eyes. Sorry you didn't like me.